Chains
by Maddy77
Summary: John's first thought is that Sammy would be about this age. Time stamp from "Semper Familia".


Author's Note: In response to the several requests I received asking for a time stamp giving some insight into John's thought process during _Semper Familia_, here we are. This isn't pretty, and it's definitely not meant to be seen as a justification of John's actions, but hopefully it provides a look behind the curtain.

This would not be half the story it is without the tireless and insightful effort of my beta, AintNoMeIfThereAintNoYou. If you like the _Semper Familia_ 'verse (and if you don't, good luck with this story!), check out her _Tabula Rasa_. It hits all of my hurt/comfort buttons.

Trigger warnings here for serious child abuse, slavery, and a brief mention of rape.

* * *

_If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own. __-Ralph Waldo Emerson_

John's first thought is _Sammy would be about this age_.

The frigid Wisconsin winter wind bites at his face outside of Hank Beringer's cabin. He's not happy to be here, and he refuses to set foot into the cabin, but his moral righteousness doesn't keep him warm.

Hank is a disgusting little toad, for sure. Steve had told John as much when he'd let him know who it was who'd found the boy. The Lilim. John's lips curl down into a sneer as the former Hunter comes out of the cabin with the Lilim in tow. He recalls that the word Steve had used was _repugnant_. And it's immediately obvious, as he shoves the kid down to his knees in the mud.

When the kid just kneels there, head bowed, totally compliant.

_It's for Mary. Remember._

John knows Dean's angry with him, back at the camp. He's here alone for a reason. And it's not like John disagrees—it's not like he doesn't find this whole shitshow despicable. But the ends will justify the means. He believes that. He has to.

Doesn't make it easier to slip his hand into his pocket, where a billfold with almost a thousand dollars in it is waiting to pay for something that looks so much like a boy.

Something that looks so much like his boy might have looked, if he'd lived.

He's rescued from his thoughts when Hank says, "Glad you found the place." He holds his hand out to shake, but John doesn't take it. Just crosses his arms and glares. Hank retracts his hand and rests it on the back of the boy's neck.

The boy doesn't move, doesn't look up, doesn't flinch. He just accepts the touch, and John knows damn well it's because he doesn't have a choice. The slight hunch to protect hurt ribs proves that.

_"This is fucked up, Dad."_

John tries to blink away the memory.

"Your boy didn't come with you?" Hank asks, and John decides not to respond to such a stupid question. Instead he looks to his left, to his right, and then gives Hank a withering glare. Hank laughs as though he'd told a joke. "Suppose not. Probably just as well—transactions like this are better done quietly."

_"We don't need to do this. We can find the demon on our own."_

"The boy's well-trained," Hank says, deciding to just proceed with his own monologue in the face of John's silence. He threads his fingers through the boy's hair, and John's stomach turns.

_They've just pulled into town, and Dean looks so happy as he lays into his burger._

_John knows that this conversation isn't going to go over well, and it just makes it harder to see how happy Dean is right now._

_"Thought we'd never get out of the damn car," Dean mumbles between bites, then shoots a glance out the window where the Impala is parked beneath a street light. "No offense, baby."_

_John chuckles and takes a bite of his own burger. Dean's halfway done, but John's barely eaten. He finds his appetite isn't what it usually is._

_Dean, of course, notices. He frowns, and puts his burger down on his plate. "You okay, Dad?" he asks. Damn observant kid._

_"Fine, son," he replies, but it's not fooling Dean._

_"Is it about the hunt?" Dean asks. "You ready to tell me about it yet? Because I gotta admit, this whole being in the dark thing is getting old."_

_John's not ready._

_Not at all._

_But it's time, so he pushes his plate away and meets Dean's suddenly wary eyes. "There's no hunt," he says._

_Dean's quiet, his brow furrowed._

_"I doubt you've heard of Lilim," John continues, as Dean shakes his head. "There's one here. That's what we're here for. It's..." He trails off, trying to figure out how to proceed._

_"What are they?" Dean asks, and there's a hesitancy in his voice that John bitterly acknowledges is fully warranted. Dean asks like he already knows he won't like he answer._

_So John doesn't have a choice but to prove him right. "They're mostly human. They start out human."_

_"Like vampires," Dean says. "Or werewolves."_

_John takes a deep breath. "Sort of. They're tainted by demons as infants—we don't really understand the process. It has something to do with being fed the blood of a demon."_

_"And they become demons," Dean finishes, confident, looking like his world is back under his feet._

_When John shakes his head, Dean's face falls. "They're not—quite demons. Not quite human, either. Something in between. But they have powers, things like pyrokinesis, precognition, telekinesis."_

_"And the one here's been killing?" Dean interrupts._

_"This will be easier if you let me finish," John snaps, and Dean sits back, startled by his father's tone. "No, Dean. It hasn't been killing. And we're not here to kill it. This one has precognition, and it's been having visions of the demon that killed your mother."_

_He lets that sink in. Dean says nothing._

_"Hunters..." John fumbles for words. "Hunters have...traded in Lilim for a while. They're useful. Their powers, they can help us." Dean's face is rapidly draining of blood, so John hurries on. "They're not human, Dean. Don't forget that. They can give us a leg up on—"_

_"So you're talking about slavery," Dean says. "You're telling—what you're telling me is that we're here to buy a slave."_

_John sighs in frustration. "No, Dean. Slavery is _human_ trafficking. This is—"_

_"You said they're mostly human," Dean interjects. "Dad, come on. You can't think this is okay."_

_"I think it's necessary," John says, his voice firm. "And it's more mercy than we give most monsters."_

_Dean leans across the table, jabbing his finger onto the uneven laminate for emphasis as he hisses, "We save people. That's our job. If something's out there hurting or killing people we end it. Quickly. We don't make it last. That would make us like them."_

_"That's not what I'm talking about," John insists. "I'm talking about using the resources we have available to us."_

_"How old?" Dean asks._

_It takes John a second, but he replies, "I don't know. Young. Younger than you. They can tell who's Lilim early."_

_Dean nods as though this confirms his thoughts. "And I'm sure that as a group, Hunters are stand-up enough guys to treat their non-human living teenage _resources_ real nice," he spits._

_It's the last thing he says all night, despite John's efforts._

John looks down at the boy, the picture of obedience as his knees sink into the soggy ground, and he winces.

Dean will be furious. All the horror-movie images that the kid's worked up in his head about what goes on with Lilim, and John's going to bring home this drowned rat of a boy.

It couldn't just be simple. It couldn't just be what he'd told Dean: a transaction, the utilization of a resource, free of cruelty and petty, vicious power plays.

John's not an idiot. This is not his first exposure to the Lilim trade, and he knows that Dean is right: Hunters are not delicate, and they are not kind. You can't be, in this life. And he knows that when you spend your life confronting things impossibly more powerful than you, it can be a very tempting thing to take it out on whoever has less power than you.

That's not what this is about; not for him. He wants to find his wife's killer. This boy can help him do that. But just because _John_ doesn't want the boy to work out his anger on doesn't mean that no one has.

And it seems like someone has.

But that's not his fault. And anyway, coddling the boy won't help—it'll just confuse him. Better to start off firm and stay consistent. Don't leave any room for doubts.

The boy looks troubled enough as it is, despite the tough, blank front he's trying to put on.

But John knows that however solid his plan, it won't be enough to pacify his son.

_At the camp the next night, Dean is still in a foul mood._

_John didn't expect him to react like this. He knew the kid wouldn't be happy—hell, neither was he. But this was about finding Yellow Eyes, about avenging Mary, avenging Dean's _mother_. He thought the kid would cut him some slack._

_But they're sitting in front of the campfire and Dean is glaring daggers at John like he'd suggested becoming Nazis might be a good way to find the demon. The kid looks so fucking betrayed._

_"It's a Lilim, Dean," John insists. "A creature."_

_"It's slavery," Dean argues. "Besides, if it's just a creature, why wouldn't we kill it? I don't see you dragging around werewolves as pets."_

_"The Lilim can help us find Yellow Eyes. It's been having visions. It might know where the demon's going next, help us get the jump on it. Dean." John shifts to face his son head-on, but Dean looks away. "Dean. Listen to me. If this weren't necessary I wouldn't consider it. But it's been years since we've had a good lead. This could be it, son. The end of it."_

_Dean flicks open his butterfly knife and starts digging at the dirt. John would reprimand him for handling his knife so carelessly, but now doesn't seem like the time. "He's gonna look human," Dean mutters._

_"So do witches, but we hunt them," John says._

_"He won't even be able to fight us," Dean continues. "Not like a witch or a shtriga or a Rawhead. Right? They don't have powers other than the ones they get sold for."_

_"It doesn't mean they're not dangerous," John warns, but even he knows he's dodging the question. Because, no. The Lilim kid will not be able to take John or Dean in a fight, even separate, even unarmed. And no, it doesn't mean he won't be dangerous, because some of the Lilim have truly awful powers, and you never know what one might be hiding._

_But those powers are rare, and Dean's probably right. The kid will probably be helpless._

_"He won't even be able to defend himself," Dean murmurs, sticking the knife viciously into the ground, his violence belying his soft tone._

_"Dean."_

_His son jerks the knife out of the dirt and stabs down again._

"You won't get back talk out of him. He's got these pills you can give him to stimulate visions, if he's not coming at 'em fast enough for you."

John shakes out of his reverie at Hank's words, and looks up to see a small orange pill bottle in the other man's hand. There's a flinch from the boy, so minute that Hank doesn't even notice it, but John's a father. He notices, and his attention is diverted sufficiently that he almost misses the bottle when Hank tosses it to him.

He looks down at the bottle in his hands and scowls. "What is this shit?"

Hank shrugs carelessly, and it makes John want to punch him. "Beats me. He's been taking it in some form since he was a kid—six or so. Fires up the neurons just right or something. He doesn't like it, but like I said—well-trained. He'll take it quietly if you give it to him."

The thought of having to drug the kid twists John's stomach, and he takes a minute to calm himself. Also to correct himself: not the _kid_. The _Lilim_. Christ, he's as bad as Dean. "He gets vision without this?"

"Yeah, 'course, just not with the same regularity," Hank is quick to reassure him. "Yeah, he's not defective or anything. His other owners just liked keeping 'em on the regular, you know, making sure they've always got a lead on—"

John throws the bottle back at Hank, with perhaps a bit more force than necessary. "I don't drug up someone I'm hunting with."

He can feel the boy's eyes on him, startled out of his defenses. He doesn't like the warm rush that goes through him at proving himself different to the kid—proving himself better, maybe. He doesn't need to prove anything. The boy's Lilim, and John is about to buy him, for fuck's sake. He's not some knight in shining armor. He's another in a line of Hunters the Lilim has served, and he's _not_ different. Not different enough.

_"He won't even be able to defend himself."_

And John's purpose here is not to become the boy's defender; it's to find Mary's killer.

The Lilim looks down as soon as John meets his eyes, so he doesn't see the stricken look on John's face.

Christ, the boy's eyes are almost the same color as Dean's.

If memory hasn't faded too much in the past decade, they are _exactly_ the color of Sammy's.

He lets his sudden grief turn into resentment that this boy is here, alive, and while he should have a fourteen-year-old of his own back at camp with Dean, Sammy has been gone for ten years. He lets himself feel a completely irrational envy that this Lilim child gets to live while Sammy didn't.

"If you take his word for it, he's been with five Hunters before now," Hank says, eager to get back to the topic at hand. "Nobody's had any real complaints, far as I know. He's not mouthy, he minds his business, and he doesn't know the word _no_."

John's mouth turns down at that, and he feels some of the anger he's been trying to cultivate redirect itself. He's not a fool: he knows what Lilim are used for, and it's not always hunts. But this kid is fourteen.

This kid is Sammy's age.

He feels those unfairly green-hazel eyes land on him again, then quickly look away, and he sees another shiver.

"He says they've used him mostly for leads and bait. But he'd probably pick up on weapons handling, if you trust him enough to arm him. Pretty, too. And obedient. Your boy is a few years older than this, isn't he? Hunting must be lonely for a teenag—"

Hank cuts off when John's hand falls to his gun, but it's about four sentences too late.

John can handle Hank suggesting that maybe he's a pedophile. He's been accused of worse in the past—well. Maybe not worse. But his reputation isn't so dear to him that he'd threaten to shoot a man over some ill-conceived words about him. But not about Dean. Never about Dean.

Especially when the boy is sitting back at camp, stewing over this whole fucked-up situation, probably trying to make their meager dinner more palatable for the Lilim's first meal with them.

_"He'll be coming back with you tonight?"_

_John sighs as he closes his journal. Dean's been ignoring him for a few hours, and he wonders if that wasn't preferable to more disappointed questioning from his son. "Yes," he says._

_"I'll get something going for dinner, then," Dean says, and there's a vulnerability to his tone that makes John look up at him. The kid looks solemn, unhappy, and a little frightened._

_John shifts, gesturing to the ground, and Dean sits down with him. "We're gonna figure this out, Dean," he promises. "It's going to be hard. I know. But we'll make it work."_

_Dean meets his eyes, and it's with a reluctance that John rarely sees. He realizes then that the bit of fear he'd seen...it hadn't been fear of change, or fear of the creature that John was bringing home._

_It was fear of John._

_"This doesn't feel right," Dean mumbles, drawing his legs up to his chest and grabbing a piece of grass to shred. "It's…" He breaks off._

_"Dean," John says, and he knows he sounds helpless. He's said his son's name so many times tonight, just his name, begging for him to understand, unable to find the words to plead._

_"We're supposed to help people," Dean says, sudden and loud and unrestrained, and though that fear passes through his eyes again he doesn't stop. "Not torture creatures. I'm okay with putting something down when it's hurting people but Dad, that's not what this is. This kid hasn't hurt anybody. This isn't what we do."_

_"We aren't going to torture the Lilim," John snaps, and his anger is only fueled by the way Dean glares at him. "He has a skill that we are going to make use of."_

_"By keeping him captive," Dean spits._

_"He's not human, Dean!" John shouts, then sucks in a deep breath to try to calm himself. "Lilim aren't human. Stop acting like I'm kidnapping some child."_

_"No," Dean says bitterly. "No, of course not. You're buying one."_

"You will," he grinds out, hand trembling above his gun, "keep a civil fucking tongue in your mouth when you talk about my son. I don't know what kind of shit you get up to, Beringer, but my son isn't like that."

Hank backpedals so fast John's sure he's gonna fall over. While it's gratifying to see the sheen of sweat on his forehead, John is less satisfied by what he sees from the kid. The Lilim boy has gone absolutely motionless and sheet-white, still kneeling on the ground. "I'm sure he is," Hank stammers. "Didn't mean anything by it. Didn't mean it was wrong. Just saying, if the boy wants companionship—"

John's hand tightens around the handle of the gun, and it takes all of his willpower not to draw it. "Quit while you're behind."

Hank obeys, and John takes his hand off the gun and slips it into his pocket, drawing out the billfold. "Count it."

Hank catches the billfold and hurriedly thumbs through it before nodding. "All in order."

"Good." John looks down at the Lilim, who rushes to scramble to his feet. John grips the boy's arm.

It feels human. It's an odd thing to think, because it's not like he expected scales, but the arm in his hand feels like Dean's did when he was this age—thin and bony, long and ungainly. Dean had more muscle at this age, but John supposes nobody worries much about a Lilim's nutrition.

Nobody except for Dean, probably laboring over the stew back at the camp.

It makes him feel guilty, and it makes him feel angry, and he channels that anger into the grip on the kid's arm. It's unfair, but he can't afford this foolish sentimentality. The boy is an asset, not a foster kid.

"Hey." John turns and the kid turns with him to see Hank with the bottle of pills held up. John holds back a sigh. "You sure you don't want this? I know why you're buying him. He's having visions of the demon that killed your wife. You don't want him to have them more frequently?"

John's not sure what happens, but suddenly his arm is wrenched as the boy collapses to his knees. He's frozen in place as the Lilim kid goes prostrate in front of him. John can feel him shaking as he cautiously touches John's shoes, as though torn between proving his submission and trying not to overstep his bounds. He seems emboldened when John doesn't, what, kick him away? He buries his head further against John's boots and his skinny fingers wrap around John's ankles. He's eerie in his silence, and John has to suppress a shiver of his own, after witnessing so many from the boy.

"The fuck is he doing, Beringer?" John demands, trying to step away from the boy without tripping over him or kicking him in the face. It turns out to be impossible, so he stays where he is. The boy remains entangled in John's legs, trembling finely. He can't see more than a sliver of the boy's profile, but his face is composed with the exception of tight worry lines at his lips and eyes.

Hank shrugs, looking a little startled himself. "He takes it real personal when you talk about a demon killing somebody. I tracked down one of his old owners; guy says the kid acts like each one's his fault. Never seen it before, though."

"I know it's my fault, sir," the Lilim kid murmurs. It's the first time he's heard the boy's voice, so John looks down and does his best to be still and neutral. The boy doesn't move, doesn't lift his head from the ground. "I'm so sorry it killed her. I'll do whatever I can to make it up to you. I can be good, I promise." He hesitated, and John was about to say something when he added, his voice soft and wary, "I can do it without the medicine, sir."

John can't stand it anymore; this is too much like precisely what Dean had anticipated. A broken little boy, defenseless in front of John. "Get up," he says. He takes the boy by the arm and brings him to his feet, not gently. He can't do gentleness. He can't forget why he's here, why the boy is here.

He can't think about how damn much the boy reminds him of Sammy.

And even as he thinks it, he looks down at the kid, trying to get him to meet his eyes. It's no use. The boy's eyes are downturned, and he's shivering like he expects to get the shit beaten out of him at any moment. "Christ," John mutters. He turns to Hank. "I don't want the fucking drugs."

Hank shrugs. "Your call."

"Yeah, it is." John wraps his fingers around the boy's arm again and hauls him away from the cabin, setting a pace that he knows is too fast for the injured boy but unable to slow himself. There isn't room for kindness, not here. If he stops to look at the boy he's dragging along, he'll break.

_"I'll be back in a few hours," he tells Dean. The kid has his arms crossed and isn't looking at John, like a petulant child instead of a nineteen-year-old Hunter. "Ward the camp for me while I'm gone."_

_"Sure," Dean mutters._

_"One of us will need to be on watch at all times tonight," John continues, hoping that if he keeps talking, Dean will look at him. "We don't know what the Lilim is going to be like."_

_"I think I can manage to keep a kid from making it out of the camp," Dean snipes. "I mean, unless he gets all dangerous and has a vision at me or something."_

_"Dean," John sighs._

_"Just go," Dean says, sounding tired all of a sudden. "You don't give a shit what I think about this anyway. So just go and get it over with."_

_John turns to do just that. Dean's voice stops him. "But Dad?"_

_John turns back, and Dean's eyes are dark as he says, "Don't lie to yourself. If you come back with a slave, at least be man enough to admit that it's what you're doing."_

Dean's right.

God help him, his son is right. The skin-and-bones arm that his hand is wrapped around will probably have bruises in the shape of his fingers tomorrow, and he knows those hazel eyes are fixed on him, wary and watchful. The Lilim boy knows what he is.

John should at least do him the courtesy of being frank about it, no matter how uncomfortable the truth is.

He should at least be man enough to treat the boy consistently—not as a child, but as a resource. No lies, no sugarcoating.

It doesn't make Dean's disappointment any less painful when he sees it as they step into the clearing.

It doesn't make the Lilim boy's obvious terror of him any easier to handle.

But it makes his way forward clearer.

As he sits in the tent, unable to go to sleep, unable to understand the quiet talk of his son and his new acquisition outside, he runs his thumb across the picture he always keeps in his wallet: the last picture that he, Dean, Sammy, and Mary ever took together.

He wonders, hard as he's worked to avenge his wife's and son's deaths, much as everything he's done has been to protect his loved ones from the evils he knows are lurking, as many hard and terrible choices as he's had to make in defense of the little of his family that has been spared...

He wonders if he hasn't disappointed everyone in that picture.

Family is everything.

And when Dean puts himself between John and the Lilim boy when he takes over the watch, John wonders if he hasn't made a terrible mistake by bringing a vulnerable boy to his son who so desperately wants his brother back.

As he watches the two of them sleep—or not sleep, as the case may be—he realizes that he has another terrible choice ahead of him, and hardens his heart a little more, because he knows that he may have to sacrifice this boy for Dean's safety.

John thinks, some nights, that if he were to walk into a lake, the weight of his heart would drown him.


End file.
